


in some sad way

by unorgaynized



Series: a dream of spring [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/F, Genderfluid Character, Light Angst, Other, mentions of Ned Dayne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:28:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23187046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unorgaynized/pseuds/unorgaynized
Summary: She'd had hope they wouldn't burn.A moment between Allyria Dayne and her lover.
Relationships: Alleras/Allyria Dayne, Allyria Dayne/Sarella Sand
Series: a dream of spring [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1664740
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7
Collections: ASOIAF Rarepair Week





	in some sad way

This had been a terrible, terrible idea. 

At the time, writing to the Citadel and claiming to be a relative of Alleras’ to summon them home was not so terrible. She had _needed_ her partner, needed to not be alone. Her partner had always been far cleverer than she was, far more quick to cut to the point, to have a solution. She had missed her lover, and she could not write to Prince Doran and risk disappointing him. If she had written either of the ladies Ladybright it would have been much the same. 

Allyria had long known she was not as clever, not as sharp-witted as a maester, as intelligent as the lord treasurer or her daughter. She was a dreamy woman, head full of fancies and romances, and Allyria had never regretted that so much when she laid eyes on her lover as last.

“You ordered me back from Oldtown,” Sarella said, stiff and proud as the Palestone. She did not seem pleased, for all that she had arrived. Her hair was cropped short against her skull, what curls she still had wild about her head. Sarella was tense, tense as Allyria had rarely seen her. The Viper’s daughter was not quite posed to strike, though she was certainly coiled enough to seem like it.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Allyria tried, the words empty and useless in the air. They did not cover enough of her fears and nightmares, the dark weight upon her heart and body.

“You wanted to talk to me,” Sarella repeated. “You wrote to Maester Marwyn and insisted, as a lady of House Dayne, as a kinswoman, that I must return home. I did not come home for my father’s burial to keep my anonymity. Odd things are happening at the Citadel, and I shall miss observing them.”

“I--” Staring at Sarella was like the sun, magnificent and life-giving, death-bringing to those unprepared. What had she suspected? Had she truly thought her lover would not mind this, after the pains? Sarella could not tell her family either, they could not know she was here or they would demand to see her, and Allyria hadn’t considered that. She was an utter fool. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Sarella took a breath, leaning against a pillar. She was the Sphinx no longer, not quite so calm and collected as she might be with anyone else. She never was with Allyria, because she _understood._ Allyria had been the infant of her family until little Ned was born, and the calm, patronizing _understanding_ that all her family had would bring her to frustrated tears. Sarella had figured that out after a few conversations, as she herself was a younger child, chasing after the grown adults for their knowledge and tearing it out of them. “I should not have lost my temper. If this was a conversation important to you, then it is so to me.”

“You’ll be able to return? Easily? You could not take a ship, but you’ll have to switch your horse, and then—“ oh, she had truly been a fool, because a horse from the Citadel would be noticed. Sarella would have to stay a day or two to rest her steed, and she would have to disguise herself to stay so that it would not anger her family that she returned for Allyria and not for them. 

“Allyria. My star. You needed me. It was important.”

“Ned is missing,” Allyria broke out. She felt hollow as she said it, hollow and empty and somehow dead. “Lord Beric is said to have died mayhaps seven times and there’s no word of Ned. He has not written, and the last anyone has heard he was at a burning sept, in battle with outlaws.”

Sarella wrapped her arms around Allyria then, warm and steady, solid as a spear. “Gods be good.”

Ned. Little Ned, pale-haired as his mother and grandparents. It was an oddity in the Dayne line, to have blonde hair, rather than dark or Dawn-pale hair. Dawn-pale hair cropped up often enough in their cadet branch and occasionally in the true family, but his hair had a touch too much sun to match their blade. A streak of Dawn was considered blessed, and showed up often in their Swords of the Morning, though Arthur’s hair was said to be as night-dark as hers.

She and Ned had pretended often enough when they were children that one of them would grow to wield Dawn. Allyria had used her four years of superiority to claim she would be the one to hold Dawn like her brother, though Ned had always been more entranced than she. They had been the only children of Starfall, the only true living Daynes. They had been child lords in truth if not in name since Ned had stumbled into speech, their parents too lost in grief to rule. Ned had been Lord of Starfall since he was six and Allyria ten, her eldest brother poisoning himself in his sleep and her father already four years in his grave, their mothers dead to horseback accidents and strokes. 

Ned had been her best friend, there for her fanciful turns of mood, when she pretended she was her dead sister Ashara’s daughter-- for was she not young enough? Had not her sister delivered a dead daughter the same year Allyria was born?-- to whoever she fancied more at the time. She’d decided that her sister had been in love with Eddard Stark, for he had returned famed Arthur’s blade, Ashara had died not long after, and Edric had a similar enough name. Sometimes she thought she had been Brandon’s daughter, a claimant to Winterfell, and once or twice she imagined Ashara had had an affair with Prince Rhaegar. Anything for a larger family, where she and Edric were not the only life, the only _truly_ living members of their family? Wylla the wet nurse was the closest they had to a relative, save for the High Hermitage. Ryon Allyrion was so much older, and they only saw his son the few times they could play in the Water Gardens, so far from home.

She had met Sarella there, and had fallen in love with the older child’s scowl when Allyria had dared splash too near where Sarella read. They had primarily communicated through letters, seeing each other only rarely. It had only been a couple years past that Allyria had been trusted enough to be told that her friend was not always a girl, and that Alleras was no boy.

When Prince Doran had approached Allyria just past her flowering to ask how she felt about a peace-making alliance between Dorne and the crown though marriage to a Stormlands lord of the marches, Sarella had been there to keep Allyria from weeping at the thought of such a faraway marriage. Lord Beric had been kind enough as men went, but he was not Sarella. His mother was born a Yronwood, so Allyria hadn’t even feared cruelty for her blood. He was even kin to a cousin of Ned’s. Prince Doran had explained his hope well: their Usurper king was a Stormlander, and the Dondarrions had been first and foremost of the marcher lords to come to his side. Dorne must seem as if she consented to Baratheon rule, and must seem loyal. Allyria was the sister of a House tightly tied to the Targaryens by dint of her sister and brother, and he could not marry off Arianne-- might she consent? 

Sarella had picked it apart with her, had said again and again Allyria did not need to agree. Allyria had understood, but she’d wanted to. She would have been closer to Sunspear and the Water Gardens, closer to Sarella. Their lover would be a maester trained and chained by the time she and Lord Beric were to wed, and could serve as their household master. Ned had gone off to learn the arts of knighthood from the man who was to become his closest kin then, a lord who knew the saddle first and best. It should had been Arthur teaching him, but his (their?) uncle was years in his grave, with the rest of their House. She had been Ned’s regent, and she had allowed him to go all the same and so—

It was her fault Edric was missing, her fault Ned might be dead. His thirteenth nameday had barely passed. She could not put it in writing that she might be Lady of Starfall in truth, and have the vultures and scavengers descend on her house for her hand. She had been acting as such since she had flowered, yet her betrothal had held away Gerold Dayne’s offer. 

“It is my fault,” she said dully. “I never should have agreed to this. I never, I never--” her voice cracked and Allyria buried her head in Sarella’s shoulder. How foolish she had been, how naive, how simple. 

“Did you tell Edric to follow Ser Beric through the fires? Did you tell him to stand at his side? Are you a band of outlaws who set fire to the septry?” Sarella’s voice was even, calm and measured. Alleras’s voice now, Alleras who held her. Allyria lifted her head.

“No. Never.” Alleras’s eyes caught hers, dark and heavy. Sorrowful, older than Allyria considered herself. Alleras was only two years older than Allyria, yet they had always been more solemn, more mature than Allyria felt. She swallowed.

“Then you have nothing to hold for this, nothing to blame.” Alleras pressed a burning kiss to one side of her face, then the other. 

Alleras left her the final kiss, letting Allyria decide if she felt comfortable enough to do so. Alleras never would pressure her, and she loved them for that, especially in this moment. Allyria leaned forward, pressing herself into Alleras. They would only have the night or so, and Alleras would need to return back to the Citadel before the month ended. They would make the most of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the fantastic ASOIAF timeline, this ficlet is able to be set in AFFC, specifically between Feast's prologue and The Soiled Knight. There's about ten days between them, and this is closer to the beginning. The news of Oberyn's death reached Sunspear (and thus Dorne) about two weeks ago.
> 
> asoiaf rarepairs a dream of spring event day three: sun | hope.


End file.
